The Winter Antsiness only takes a week to kick in.

It's weird to look outside and really feel like it's winter. The ground actually has snow on it for the first time, for real. I have to be careful again with walking, I fell down the other day and ordered new boots the next day but they aren't here yet. I woke up way too early this morning, the noise is muffled and the light is brighter when there is snow everywhere, and I can never sleep in unless I'm really zonked the night before. I am sitting in a coffee shop, at a bench facing the window and the street. Across the street is a tax shop. I don't know, do you call them shops? A tax place. The lights are on, and there is a stout boy in a grey t-shirt applying white touchup paint to the window moldings, on a short silver ladder. There is a very large American Flag on a post amid the jumble of chairs and cubicles walls that have not been put together yet. Their name is on the awning, so I assume they are always there, always open, just today on a Sunday, they are repainting. I bet it is that boy's father's business. The boy has thick muppet hair that is too long, but he is painting very carefully. I really hope it is a tall fat teenage boy, and not a woman, I would feel terrible.

 One thing I like about this dark cold time of the year is that the window (and yes I hate to use that word here, you will see in a second why) the window during the day in which you can see into other people's houses (in through their windows see?) because they are all lit up and no one closes their curtains is longer, it starts at like three instead of six. I'm not some sort of creeper, but when I am driving through neighborhood streets, I like being able to glance into living rooms and see how people actually decorate their houses. Most people are horrible at it, meaning it's not really decorated at all but just filled with lots and lots of mismatched stuff they've gathered up. There is probably at least one chair they've gotten from their parents, even if they are in their late forties, I think people are very loathe to give up furniture they grew up with even though it's so much cheaper and more disposable now. There is a rocking chair at my parents house that I took with me around homes for a while, because it was the rocking chair that Dad used to sing to us in. When I was little, I used to pretend it was the very large chair from that Lily Tomlin Sesame Street sketch. I am surprised instead sometimes at how conservative the nicer houses look, as if their owners read a magazine and picked out a living room, then just bought everything in the photo. But never a photo I would choose. It help keeps down homeowners guilt, that sneaking feeling that people over 30 shouldn't be living month to month in apartments still, when you look at other houses and you don't want to live there. The exception to this is my friend Camilla's house, it's so very close to how it would look if I lived there, that I feel a weird sense of ambition to actually clean and decorate, to prove I would pick cool colors too. But my apartment walls are still cream colored like they were when I moved in years ago. And I'm so done with that place, cleaning is actually too much to ask at this point.

 Do you remember how tricked out cars used to be underlit with bright neon greens and blues, reds and purple. I love that. I miss that. I would also, if I believed in my car enough, love to have flashy spinners. I am destined to be a weirdly dressed old lady. I suspect my entire wardrobe this winter is going to be sweater dresses and sequin dresses. Wearing sequins during the day is the best time, because it shines so much in the sunshine. I feel the same way about my tiara, but its harder to pull that off without looking infantile, so I don't wear it as much as I would like. I wanted to snow paint today, but it melted too much, so that will have to be saved for a harder snow. Instead I tried to write for a few hours here, but you see how loose my thoughts are today? It's next to impossible to concentrate. I drank too much coffee. So I guess we're off to the batting cages now. I wish there was somewhere to see fireworks tonight.